Warwickshire 2017

This is HMICFRS’ fourth PEEL (police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy) assessment of Warwickshire Police. PEEL is designed to give the public information about how their local police force is performing in several important areas, in a way that is comparable both across England and Wales, and year on year. The assessment is updated throughout the year with our inspection findings and reports.

The extent to which the force is effective at keeping people safe and reducing crime is not yet graded.

The extent to which the force is efficient at keeping people safe and reducing crime is good.

The extent to which the force is legitimate at keeping people safe and reducing crime requires improvement.

The efficiency and legitimacy inspection findings are published below.

Effectiveness

How effective is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?

Efficiency

How efficient is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?

Last updated 09/11/2017

Good

Warwickshire Police is judged to be good in the efficiency with which it keeps people safe and reduces crime. Our overall judgment this year is the same as last year. The force is judged to be good in its understanding of demand; its use of resources to manage demand is assessed to be good; and its planning for future demand is also judged to be good.

Warwickshire Police has a good understanding of current and likely future demand and continually assesses its ability to respond effectively. Its strategic alliance with West Mercia Police is a strength that has enabled both forces to make considerable savings. Forthcoming developments include the introduction of new control rooms, supported by advances in technology that include new command and control, intelligence and mobile data systems. These developments are timely, because the force is experiencing operational pressures within its control rooms, leading to inefficient processes for call-handling and crime management. The force is refining its new investigative model to improve how it manages crimes and transfer of investigations to officers with the right skills.

The force’s change programme is subject to firm governance, increasing the likelihood of benefits being realised and avoiding unintended consequences. The force exposes itself to external scrutiny to provide further validation and it engages with its workforce well, allowing officers and staff to influence future changes. There is a strong commitment to leadership development and the force’s new approach to talent management offers a good opportunity to identify and develop the most talented members of its workforce. Across the strategic alliance, there are mature arrangements in place to support partnership work and its change programme is ambitious and innovative.

Legitimacy

How legitimate is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?

Last updated 12/12/2017

Requires improvement

Warwickshire Police is judged as requiring improvement in how legitimately it keeps people safe and reduces crime. For the areas of legitimacy we looked at this year, our overall judgment is less positive than last year when we assessed the force as good. The force requires improvement in some aspects of treating all the people it serves with fairness and respect; it requires improvement in ensuring its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully; and it requires improvement in some aspects of treating its workforce with fairness and respect.

Warwickshire Police is judged as requiring improvement in respect of how legitimately it keeps people safe and reduces crime. Although leaders clearly demonstrate that they understand and value the benefits of procedural justice, they need to provide the workforce with training so that the force acts fairly, treats people with respect and communicates effectively. The force scrutinises its use of stop and search powers well, but must improve its understanding of how its officers and staff use force. Reassuringly, the force encourages external scrutiny from different groups and acts on their feedback, but it would benefit from involving young people more.

Warwickshire Police takes steps to ensure that its workforce makes decisions that are ethical. Its internal ethics committee is a new development that will provide officers and staff with opportunities to raise ethical questions and allow for learning to be passed on. The force needs to improve its handling of complaints and misconduct cases, including how it supports and communicates with complainants, witnesses and those subject to investigation. It needs to be consistent in handling cases that involve discrimination and it could do more to promote access to the complaints system for people who need extra assistance.

The force requires improvement in some aspects of treating its workforce with fairness and respect. Although it understands the importance of addressing potential disproportionality in the recruitment, retention and progression of officers and staff with protected characteristics (such as age, gender or sexuality), it does not monitor disproportionality in their treatment if they are subjected to complaint or misconduct investigations. Positively, leaders demonstrate a growing commitment to health and wellbeing, particularly support for mental health, and this is recognised by the workforce. The force is also working to improve how it manages and develops individual performance, but many of its initiatives are recent and their benefits cannot yet be determined. The introduction of continuing professional development provides Warwickshire Police with the ability to identify leadership potential throughout its workforce; its leadership selection process is fair and open, and the workforce perceives it to be fair.

Other inspections

How well has the force performed in our other inspections?

In addition to the three core PEEL pillars, HMICFRS carries out inspections of a wide range of policing activity throughout the year. Some of these are conducted alongside the PEEL inspections (for instance, our 2016 leadership assessment); others are joint inspections.

Findings from these inspections are published separately to the main PEEL reports, but are taken into account when producing the rounded assessment of each force's performance.

Victim-based crimes

Cost

Points of context provided by the force

Warwickshire and West Mercia police forces continue to work in close alliance to meet the challenges of reduced budgets and achieve the shared vision of Protecting people from harm.

Warwickshire Police has a transformational change programme for 2020; taking account of future demand, to be innovative and people focused, working with partners and producing a new investigative model.

Police and crime plan priorities

The Police and Crime Plan sets out my vision for creating a safer, more secure Warwickshire and outlines how I will hold the Chief Constable to account for its delivery.

It is organised into four key objectives:

Putting victims and survivors first

Ensuring efficient and effective policing

Protecting people from harm

Preventing and reducing crime

Read More

I will ensure that the officers and staff of Warwickshire Police are properly recruited, trained and motivated to detect and deter crime. They will be equipped with the right technology to meet the changing nature of crime and deliver effective services to the public, while also remaining highly visible among our communities.

I will also ensure that there is strong partnership working which focuses on delivering a joined-up service for all victims and survivors of crime, while continuing to ensure that the most vulnerable in society are protected from harm.